Other information

Why employers need to think about employee stress

It makes sound financial sense to be an employer who cares about staff stress levels and is proactive about keeping them low. If your staff suffer occupational stress, then Health and Safety Regulations may actually require you to do this, but staff who bring stress with them from home, or who struggle to find a good work/life balance, will still find their ability to perform well at work is affected. This is a particular problem in the Yorkshire and Humberside area.

The total number of cases of work related stress, depression or anxiety in 2015/16 was 488,000 cases, a prevalence rate of 1510 per 100,000 workers.

The number of new cases was 224,000, an incidence rate of 690 per 100,000 workers.

The estimated number and rate have remained broadly flat for more than a decade.

The total number of working days lost due to this condition in 2015/16 was 11.7 million days. This equated to an average of 23.9 days lost per case. Working days lost per worker showed a generally downward trend up to around 2009/10; since then the rate has been broadly flat.

In 2015/16 stress accounted for 37% of all work related ill health cases and 45% of all working days lost due to ill health.

Stress is more prevalent in public service industries, such as education; health and social care; and public administration and defence.

By occupation, jobs that are common across public service industries (such as healthcare workers; teaching professionals; business, media and public service professionals) show higher levels of stress as compared to all jobs.

The main work factors cited by respondents as causing work related stress, depression or anxiety (LFS) were workload pressures, including tight deadlines and too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support

Stress is the most common cause of long-term absence, and is the second most common cause of short-term absence after minor illness.

Nearly a third of respondents report that stress-related absence in their organisation has increased over the past year, although this rises to half of public sector organisations.

Overall, two-fifths of organisations claim an increase in reported mental health problems (such as anxiety and depression) among employees in the past 12 months.

Just over three-fifths of organisations are taking steps to identify and reduce stress in the workplace, although a third of those who include stress among their top five causes of absence are not taking any steps to address it.

One in ten organisations have a standalone well-being strategy in support of their wider organisation strategy, while a further 25% have a well-being plan/programme as part of a wider people strategy.

The most common causes of stress at work are volume of work (55%), non-work factors (relationships/family) (33%) and poor managment style (32%). Other home factors (27%) and changes in the work environment (26%) are also high on the list.

Why should you take action?

Towers Watson / National Business Group / National Business Group report 2013/14 sugggests that 78% of employers rank stress as a top workkforce risk, yet only 15% of them prioritise dealing with it in their Health and Productivity programmes. It refers to this as a "disconnect" and suggests that it increases 'absence, presenteeism and unwanted turnover'.

"People in your organisation must recognise individuals suffering with ongoing periods of significant stress; otherwise they risk the employee reaching a fatigue point and exhaustion setting in. In addition, their productivity will drop, and if the situation continues at the same rate the individual could be on the path to mental ill health or a breakdown …

It is essential that managers within your business are able to recognise the early signs of stress especially when it moves towards unhealthy levels. Therefore, you need to give them the tools to support employees who are under excessive pressure."